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As soon as the house lights go down at the St. James Theatre on Broadway for the theatrical production of punk band, Green Day’s rock opera opus, American Idiot, the audience is (quite intentionally) assaulted with a seemingly endless barrage of sound bytes from news and pop culture of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

It’s amazing how long it takes us to change our view of something once it’s ingrained. Most people still think of New York City as dangerous, Starbucks coffee as bitter, Robin Williams as funny, and Broadway music as the exclusive domain of such songsmiths as Rodgers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber. That last one may change for good starting next week, when the musical American Idiot, based on Green Day’s 2004 punk-pop album of the same name, opens at the St. James Theater.